teaching souls through the written word

Want to know a mystery?

Forget what you know about mystery novels, weird stuff, and all that. This mystery’s not like that.

In his letter to the Ephesians Paul refers to the mystery (secret) which God kept hidden for many centuries but finally made known in the first century A.D. The mystery has to do with the salvation of all people in Christ, Jew and Gentile, on an equal basis (Ephesians 3:3-5, 8-11).

If we put what Paul says here in the form of a flow chart, here’s how it looks:

For ages the mystery of Christ was not known (vv. 5, 9).

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God revealed it to Paul and other apostles & prophets (vv. 3, 5).

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Paul wrote what had been revealed to him (v. 3).

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The reader can then understand Paul’s knowledge (v. 4).

The mystery unveiled

God did not reveal the mystery to a select few so they could take special pride in possessing this inside knowledge unavailable to the masses. No! The apostles and prophets were God’s agents for transferring this wonderful message to all the world.

For some time they preached it orally. Since these men would not live forever, God wisely arranged for them to record for all time the message, resulting in what we now call the New Testament (John 20:30-31; Jude 3).

Now that we have the New Testament, we have access to all we need to be saved. Now we can know what God has planned for us in this life and throughout eternity.